1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to storing and retrieving data to and from a hard disk drive.
2. Background Information
Various electronic systems store data in non-volatile mass storage devices such as a hard disk drive. For example, personal computers contain one or more disk drives that store data and other information. Data is typically stored in files of the disk drive by the host computer in conjunction with a direct memory access (“DMA”) controller. When retrieving data, the DMA controller typically specifies a system memory location. The disk drive contains internal firmware that converts the system memory location to areas of the internal disk that contain the requested information. The data is typically stored in the disk drive within a specified file format.
When writing an external software application that retrieves data from the drive the developer must know the file data format and the output format of the drive. Such an approach can be burdensome, requiring the programmer to constantly monitor revisions of the disk drive language. It would be desirable to provide a disk drive that provides an embedded format that remains the same.